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GalCiv III v1.9 Changelog

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GalCiv III v1.9 Changelog

from Stardock.net Forums

[[RELEASED]]

 
 
This is an opt-in patch:

To enable the patch, please do the following:

  • Select Galactic Civilization III in your Steam Library list
  • Right-click and select Properties
  • Select the BETAS tab
  • From the dropdown, select opt-in and click Close (if you don't see this option, restart Steam)
  • Steam should pull down the changed files; if you ever want to go back, do the same as above but select default

Please note: The opt-in is an early preview of the next update and you might experience bugs or other issues. We encourage players who try the opt-in to report any issues to the support forum or via support ticket so we can address them.

Optimization

  • Memory: introduced new texture compression for planetary and ship textures to greatly reduce memory usage and dramatically improve startup times.
  • Removed legacy stopwatch code from the sound system
  • Moved old profiling junk
  • Reduced CPU usage of the particles and main graphics threads
  • Removed redundant debug output
  • Multithreaded the texture loading at the start of game to improve performance.

AI

  • AI builds scout ships later in the game to keep exploring very large galaxies
  • Dramatically reduced AI >normal economic bonuses (no longer needs them)
  • Re-designed the way the AI expands into the galaxy with colony ships so that its expansion no longer stalls on large maps
  • Dramatically reduced the amount of time an AI will interact with a player if they are not within ship range
  • AI doesn't try to bribe other players to go to war unless they and the other players have a decent military already
  • AI will no longer give tech gifts to players with a different ideology (i.e. no more Drengin giving you tech if you're a nice person)
  • AI now scales the number of similar ship projects based on number of colonies rather than a flat number
  • AI pumps up colony ship production priority if there are a lot of nice planets laying around
  • AI pumps out fewer Constructors in general
  • Re-designed the way the AI determines which planets should get a shipyard to be more (way more) intelligent
  • Updated AI's handling of adjacency bonuses to be more intelligent
  • AI values planet quality more when picking planets to colonize 
  • AI somewhat more heuristic on tech research
  • AI somewhat quicker to war
  • Auto Surveying Survey Ships will now survey extra anomalies if the ship has extra movement points.

Balance

  • Starbase minimum distance reduced from 5 to 3 tiles.
  • AI tends to focus more on tech (generally) than previously.
  • AI will build survey ships late in game.
  • AI provided with a much wider variety of ship designs to choose from with the various strategies.
  • AI weights units much more closely than previously in order to not make one virtually impossible to build.
  • Opposing culture diplomatic penalty reduced from 1.25 to 1.1 if AI is benevolent.
  • Opposing culture diplomatic penalty increased from 1.25 to 2 if AI is merciless.
  • Opposing culture diplomatic penalty increased from 1.25 to 2 if AI is cruel.
  • Close to victory diplomatic penalties increased from 1 to 5.
  • Ripe for conquest diplomacy penalty reduced from 0.75 to 0.1 if AI is benevolent.
  • Ripe for conquest diplomacy penalty increased from 0.75 to 1.25 if AI is aggressive.
  • Minimum planet class to be a manufacturing world reduced from 7 to 4.
  • Max number of colony ships the AI will construct at once increased from 2 to 3.
  • Max slider focus reduced from 95% to 75% (to deal with coercion penalty).
  • Coercion forgiveness eliminated (there is always some coercion if you move off from center).
  • Maximum coercion reduced from 50% to 35%.
  • Colony Capital production points reduced from 5 to 1.
  • Civilization Capital production points reduced from 5 to 1.
  • Influence Radius root increased from 1.75 to 4 (i.e. influence ZOC will start out much much smaller now).
  • Tech inflation penalty significantly reduced.
  • Penalty for switching a constructor to a colony ship increased from 50% to 75% (yea, you know who you are).
  • Pirates moved further away from starting location.
  • Increased the variance for the various settings (minors, pirates, etc.).
  • Modified the governor script to provide a bit more flexibility based on planet bonuses when building improvements.
  • Colony capital maintenance eliminated.
  • Colony capital hub provides a 2 (was 1) level bonus to adjacent buildings if they are population or manufacturing or research.
  • Civ capital hub provides a 3 level bonus (was 1).
  • Reduced maint. slightly on research buildings.
  • Rare habitable planets decreased from 30% to 25%.
  • Nebula and black holes and anomalies made much less common on all settings.
  • Occasional planet frequency amount doubled from 1X to 2X.
  • Common stars modifier increased from 0.9 to 1.
  • Common planet frequency amount increased from 0.75X to 3X (this also fixes a bug where common was less than occasional).
  • Abundant stars increased from 1X to 1.5X.
  • Planet Frequency increased from 0.25X to 3.5X (also fixes bug).
  • Tiny map base objects increased from 32 to 120 (i.e. tiny maps will be a lot more filled).
  • Small map base object count increased from 64 to 150.
  • Medium map Base object count increased from 110 to 200.
  • Large map base object count increased from 155 to 300 (i.e. over twice as many stars/planets/etc. in a particular size).
  • Huge map base object count increased from 250 to 350.
  • INSANE map object count INCREASED from 1200 to 1400!
  • Sensor cost components reduced slightly.
  • Cargo module cost reduced from 27 to 10 (cheaper colony ships -- but remember, planets now rely more on population for their production).
  • Tiny hull cost reduced from 11 to 10.
  • Small hull cost reduced from 25 to 20.
  • Medium hull HP increased from 100 to 120.
  • Large hull cost increased from 128 to 300.
  • Large hull HP increased from 250 to 600.
  • Large hull storage increased from 100 to 120.
  • Large hull logistics cost increased from 7 to 10.
  • Huge hull cost increased from 432 to 500.
  • Huge hull HP increased from 500 to 800.
  • Huge hull storage increased from 250 to 300.
  • Huge hull logistics increased from 10 to 16.
  • Cargo hull cost reduced from 42 to 24.
  • Cargo hull HP reduced from 10 to 1.
  • Cargo hull logistics increased from 5 to 6.

Improvements/Bugs Fixes

  • Added author fields for maps, factions and ships.
  • Starbases will now notify the you that they need to be upgraded after being initially built.  
  • Fixed double counting of trade routes for AI diplomacy purposes.
  • Fixed late game crashes related to textures on large maps.
  • Fixed an infrequent crash on loading large maps.
  • Fixed bug that could cause the AI to see tiles in the opposite map position of where they were exploring.
  • Fixed a bug that could cause the AI to reduce the priority weighting on colony ship production based on the # of targetable planets.
  • If a player faction is set to random in the prefs.ini file, the quick-start tooltip will no longer display an invalid faction.
  • Fixed an issue where if you changed the planetary spending wheel, the displayed. manufacturing time for improvements wasn't being updated at the same time.
  • Clicking available projects tabs no longer resets the improvement cursor.
  • Add ESC to close Ship Designer and Diplomacy screens.
  • Starbases no longer incorrectly show the upgrade option when none avail.
  • Fixed a crash related to the AI defying the UP.\

If you want to read my Dev Diary full of me complaining and whining and how I worked on the update visit here: https://forums.galciv3.com/480761/ and here: https://forums.galciv3.com/480723 

560,807 views 94 replies
Reply #51 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

A Thalan trade ship arrived at one of my colonies before I even met them. I also don't think any of their ships saw my planet.

A pirate ship that followed one of my constructors attacked the starbase it created. It failed, but I don't recall seeing them do that. It was interesting.

Reply #52 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

1.9 SP game feedback part IV

  • Continued core game feedback.  (General AI Behavior)

    • Torian, placed a Solar Plant next to a capitol +2 on a Floodplain where a farm would have benefited the most from this location and a solar plant has very little benefit.  Instead placed a farm next to a factory in a different clump followed by a research building.

    • Another faction built a farm, next to a marketplace, next to a factory & research building, next to a hotsprings, then built another market place on the otherside of the map as well as another research building on the otherside of the map, adjacency doesn't appear to have been the goal here.

    • Had a 4th AI faction declare war, this time on the opposite side of the other AI's.  It didn't matter, however, they were also not ready for war and in fact they were 7th in military power next to my 6th in military power and I was #1 in power ranking where as they weren't even in the top 10.  

    • Turn 145 I've still only met about 15%-20% of the factions and I have 3 x's the power ranking the next closest faction.

    • AI is starting to build star bases but, at this point I'm just mopping them up.

  • Observations...
    • I was incorrect in my previous post about production being low, just needed to add some core buildings in the right places now building military much faster.
    • Turn times starting to slow as I'm meeting factions and factions getting larger will continue to monitor, however, still at a decent rate 10-20 seconds per turn.
Siege of Centauri
Reply #53 from GalCiv3 Forums Top


Starbase minimum distance reduced from 5 to 3 tiles.

im not sure i like this

i play a starbase heavy game and the amount of micro that creates for constructor spam is rather annoying ive actually been thinking of increasing this number simply to reduce the amount of constructors you need to send out

 

Reply #54 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

From the bits I've played so far I do agree with those saying that influence changes appear too heavy - though in general I do like that it does take more effort to increase influence. Research on normal also a bit too fast, but to me it's kinda secondary as I could always set research rates slower.

 

Reply #55 from Stardock Forums Top

Brad has suggested earlier that an administration resource will be introduced to limit the # of starbases for each faction.

Reply #56 from Stardock Forums Top

Bravo for the return of Brad!! The changes and AI improvements in v1.90 are very positive. The nerfing of colony capital is great because it allows tall strategy to be viable, for example, for Yor.

One area that AI may need a lot of love is the build-order. The AI is building tons of low-yield buildings with return-on-investment 10x lower than the alternative. In 39 turns, I was able to beat the AI by more than 10x in planet production. 

AI Manu: 10; Research 22.1; Income: 1.8; Pop 7/16; Approval:100; influence: 53

Human Manu: 227; Research 47; Income: -6.7; Pop 32.5/30; Approval:64; influence: 69

There may be a relatively simple fix, see this post.

 

 

Reply #57 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Heuristicist, reply 55

Brad has suggested earlier that an administration resource will be introduced to limit the # of starbases for each faction.

Hi,

This would certainly cut down on what has become the rather overwhelming task of optimising starbases but they do need to balance this against tech costs.

After a first iteration of 1.90 in which these became very low - much too cheap really - there's been another one (unless my file set up is faulty and the game is corrupted) in which they've gone the other way and (as I said in another thread)  after I got about 100 techs in a huge galaxy at genius level and normal tech cost, the cost of the most expensive tech of all Beyond Mortality, had already inflated to over 200k.

This is certainly doable with unlimited starbases or some reasonable cost for them since you can get 16 or 18 round your top research planets but otherwise would be incredibly hard and so going  for conquest  - or at least to take a very large number of juicy research  planets - would become forced if you wanted to play for a tech win. 

Correspondingly, the reduction in culture has mitigated very strongly against going for a culture win and, incidentally, somewhat reduced the effectiveness of the Benevolent ideology tree since "Enticing" previously a potential game changer is now rather less effective (You can arrange to snag minor races but harder to get planets of the major ones). 

And indeed the Builder line of the pragmatic tree will greatly reduce in value if you need far fewer constructors because you have far fewer bases.

The reduction in planet capital bonuses has also had an effect on the ideology trees since Malevolent with its early production bonuses is now relatively better than it was before.

Anyway, the point I'm making is that changes to one aspect of the game can affect balance in all sorts of ways and need to be thought about very carefully.

Any thoughts anybody,

Cheers,

Jon

 

 

 

 

 

Reply #58 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Heuristicist, reply 56

One area that AI may need a lot of love is the build-order. The AI is building tons of low-yield buildings with return-on-investment 10x lower than the alternative. In 39 turns, I was able to beat the AI by more than 10x in planet production.
This is actually low hanging fruit, too.

You don't even have to go as far as to do a ROI table. Just fix two issues:

1) Shipyards. A new colony does not need a shipyard, when it is popcapped 5/5 and only has a basic factory and a research laboratory on it.

2) Upgrades. You do not build a Xeno Factory, when you can build a solar power plant. If you have adjacencies, you probably don't even do the upgrade first if you ahve to terraform a tile. 45 prod for +10% vs. 75 prod for 25% + adjacencies (at least three)

2b) Especially with the reduced production from colony capitals, you will possibly even prefer a farm in the above example.

In this picture (turn 25, normal) shows everything which wrong with AI build orders. I see a couple of better things to do, than the AI is doing here. It has been wasting 9 turns on this allready.

This is becoming a ceterum censeo of mine.

Could we get confirmation, that this is being looked at? Like soon? It would really put my mind at ease to see, that you are actually reaching for the low hanging fruit.

Reply #59 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I picked the ideology trait for 3 constructors instead it gave me a packet ship. I double checked it happened. 

Reply #60 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Wow, you weren't kidding about "dramatically improve startup times".  It takes well under half the time it used to.

Reply #61 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting 00zim00, reply 33

Is the bug that breaks your game if you add 'Cheat' to launch options though steam back/not been fixed?


Use the following in the steam launch properties: /cheat

Reply #62 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting pshaw, reply 61


Quoting 00zim00,
reply 33

Is the bug that breaks your game if you add 'Cheat' to launch options though steam back/not been fixed?




Use the following in the steam launch properties: /cheat

 

Thank you :)

That seems to work with no errors!

Reply #63 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting zuPloed, reply 58


Quoting Heuristicist,
reply 56

One area that AI may need a lot of love is the build-order. The AI is building tons of low-yield buildings with return-on-investment 10x lower than the alternative. In 39 turns, I was able to beat the AI by more than 10x in planet production.

This is actually low hanging fruit, too.

You don't even have to go as far as to do a ROI table. Just fix two issues:

1) Shipyards. A new colony does not need a shipyard, when it is popcapped 5/5 and only has a basic factory and a research laboratory on it.

2) Upgrades. You do not build a Xeno Factory, when you can build a solar power plant. If you have adjacencies, you probably don't even do the upgrade first if you ahve to terraform a tile. 45 prod for +10% vs. 75 prod for 25% + adjacencies (at least three)

2b) Especially with the reduced production from colony capitals, you will possibly even prefer a farm in the above example.

In this picture (turn 25, normal) shows everything which wrong with AI build orders. I see a couple of better things to do, than the AI is doing here. It has been wasting 9 turns on this allready.

This is becoming a ceterum censeo of mine.

Agreed that these can be hard-coded into AI behavior. 

1) shipyard: do not build until manufacturing exceeds 30 or 40 per turn. the opportunity cost in your example is really high. the AI spent 16 turns building the shipyard, and then will need to spend 10-12 turns before churning out a single constructure/colony ship. It could have spent all the time into building factories instead.

 

Reply #64 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting zuPloed, reply 58

Could we get confirmation, that this is being looked at? Like soon? It would really put my mind at ease to see, that you are actually reaching for the low hanging fruit.

I sent two PMs to you regarding this.

Reply #65 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Opt-in updated 12/5

  • Diplomacy tech effect to Diplomacy ability increased from 0.5 to 1
  • Influence MinToClaim increased from 0.33 to 8
  • Influence Radius root reduced from 3.25 (^0.325) to square root (^0.5)
  • Eliminated the Influence Bell Curve target divisor
  • Influence fall off is increased from -0.3 to –10
  • Capital Influence per turn increased from 1.5 to 3
  • Colony Influence per turn reduced from 2 to 1
  • Removed the faction ability bonus from the Diplomatic Office
  • Removed all faction ability bonuses from starbase modules
  • AI is much MUCH smarter about detecting cultural flipping strategies
  • AI is much better about detecting fast alliance strategies
  • Colonies now instantly update when you rush build to show the effect of the new building.
  • Players start with no area of influence for the first turn
  • Influence now grows more organically over time
Reply #66 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Thanks for the update, pshaw--looking forward to giving this a try this afternoon. I suspect I'll have to start a new galaxy for the changes to take effect?

Reply #67 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting ScrivenerOfLight, reply 66

Thanks for the update, pshaw--looking forward to giving this a try this afternoon. I suspect I'll have to start a new galaxy for the changes to take effect?

Yes, most of these changes require a new game.

 

Reply #69 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting pshaw, reply 65

AI is much MUCH smarter about detecting cultural flipping strategies

Many thanks for some wonderful work in this patch but I would say that the AI has now become so good at detecting this particular underhand strategy that it sometimes detects it when you're not intending it! After getting the full culture line in the benevolent tree in my current game, everybody thinks I'm trying to flip them. At least one of them is perfectly correct but in the case of the others it's quite unintentional and I haven't even discovered which planets they think I'm trying to flip.

Cheers,

Jon

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reply #70 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

What are fast alliance strategies btw?

Reply #71 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Bugs so far:

-Everyone thinks I am trying to culture flip them, even though I built 2 influence buildings and 2 influence star bases.  I only share boarders with one other civilization.   I have the -2 diplomacy modifier on every race, even minor factions (who are immune to culture flip), and even civilizations 100 tiles away from my borders.

-Game crashing at loading screen

Gameplay issues so far:

-You cannot disable or skip the "upgrade starbase" prompt.  This is annoying for everyone who uses 2 module constructor ships as sometimes you only wanted to upgrade 1 part.  I usually just let the ship sit there until the next upgrade is researched.  It is especially annoying as even the automated constructors (from the "automatically upgrade starbase parts" do this.

Reply #72 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Add ESC to close Ship Designer and Diplomacy screens.

 Jeez, I've been looking for this fix for ages.  So annoying not being able to use esc in every menu. 

Now if you could make the optimization techs easier to figure out in the trading screen so if I want to trade industrial optimization I don't have to read every tooltip for every tech to see which one of those is actually Industrial Optimization.

Reply #73 from GalCiv3 Forums Top


Starbase minimum distance reduced from 5 to 3 tiles.

Why is this?  Now how many starbases can I fit around a planet?  Managing starbases is one of the more annoying micromanagement tasks.  I've always wondered why starbase bonuses stack. Towards the end of the game I have more starbases than planets. 

Reply #74 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Badbonez, reply 73

I've always wondered why starbase bonuses stack. Towards the end of the game I have more starbases than planets.

Most likely somewhere between 5-7 times the number of star bases depending on number of multi-planet systems and how close the planets are :)

Reply #75 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Add ESC to close Ship Designer and Diplomacy screens.

So I recently, and quite accidentally, found out that the enter key closes the ship designer--without warning and without asking if you'd really like to cancel without saving. Resulted in no small bit of frustration having to redo what I had done...

Since esc key was added, my assumption is that either the enter key isn't intended to close the ship designer or it was originally and is now obsolete...

In any case... I haven't checked how esc key works in Ship Designer, but for that and for the enter key, could you ensure there is a prompt that makes sure you'd like to cancel in case you accidentally hit the key. That'd be great.